What nobody tells you about being an only child of an entrepreneur

When students graduate from university, there is a lot of excitement building up for the final day in university and then graduation but during that break and after that break there is also an excitement building up for starting your first job, maybe even hoping that your first job is your dream job. Or sometimes you decide to create a business or become self employed or decide to become an artist, or a sportsman/woman or maybe tap into some completely different career that no one has even thought of.

I remember one moment in my childhood, when I asked my mom, how come my dad doesn't switch companies or has never been promoted, hired or fired, and how come he doesn't have a boss to answer to. To which my mom answered, he is the boss and the founder of where he works, and that he does not work in a company, he created that company. I sat there, well not exactly in amazement, but not knowing what to do with that information.

In about grade ten, when the whole stream selection process in an Indian school happens, I chose science, because at the time it seemed logical, I was performing well academically till grade ten and I did not see a collapse in my academic performance coming. And then my teachers asked me about whether I was even worried about my future, to which I replied, no. I don't know why I said that because the expected answer was yes, but it came unconsciously. Mind you, I was that person in school who attached my self worth to his grades and whether teachers liked me, and the prestige of my stream. In hindsight, I should have listened to my mom and become a commerce student at the time.

So when my teachers and classmates were busy shaming me for every aspect of my academics and personality, I felt like just existing at that moment was a crime and when things are bad, there can sometimes be a tendency to think that it will never be over. I failed four subjects out of five in high school in June 2013. I truly felt that, that was the end of everything. Everything I worked for academically for the past ten years or so, shattered in front of me. I did not know whether I would make it into university, let alone a decent or good one. I lost friends, lost respect, lost credibility, but fortunately did not lose my family, because they knew I was going through an incredibly bad phase. It was obvious that a reinvention of myself was necessary, and that running after prestige and looking good to people who did not care about me especially when the chips were down, is a waste of time. I had to find a way out, got decent grades in my boards, which is a giant improvement from failing nearly every subject anyway.

My class teacher gave me a Toblerone for getting decent grades in my boards. It is still the best chocolate I have ever had, despite the fact that I don't really like Toblerone. I think the most important thing I realized after school was how much of a difference there was between what teachers expected out of me in school in general and my life at home where neither my father or mother played by the usual rules of society and created great things for themselves and the family through sheer hard work. In school, a "conformist" mentality is imposed where you are expected to follow rules and when you see a different example of what really happens at home, you tend to get caught in a dilemma. Fortunately I trusted my instincts, which was to go after what I want from life. Being happy.

2014 was the year, and in April that year, what I would call, "the best vacation of my life so far" had started. I celebrated getting out of high school, because it was the end of a time where I was miserable chasing things that I did not really need. I was fascinated by social awareness in general, and I created a group on Facebook called Helping Hand. (Just to make it clear, it was not an actual organization with an office to rent or something). The first few weeks/months were filled with mockery and ostracizing from people who knew me from school because what the hell someone who was a serial failure can do, he will probably fail at this too. But anyway, I kept marching on and I created a team, all the roles were interchangeable. And our team decided to make a short film, which was intended to be about suicide awareness called The New Dawn. It was the first time I made a film. When the film was made, at the time I felt like, "Wow, this is amazing!"

Then we started off doing different projects, or we tried to do different projects. Some succeeded, some failed, some were alright. Not everything was rosy all the time, I made some horrendous mistakes and glaring errors of judgement, a lot of which was my fault. But there were some really good moments. There was an Iftar drive where we collaborated with two other groups in 2016, and that was the most notable one. My team which helped in creating this taught me a lot of things and I will always be grateful to them for making this happen. Gradually things died down, and on a personal level I would love an opportunity for a revival of Helping Hand, because despite all the things that happened, it meant something. On both a collective and a personal level, because it is a team I would never forget in my life and it was such a pleasure working with everyone in my team.

In the middle of all of that btw, university happened. University also had its good and not so good moments, but I learnt a lot. University was great and I met a lot of amazing people. Became a class representative, got sacked for not being good enough. Spent three years in the drama club in my university, which was one of the best decisions I made in my life so far. And then I became the humanitarian club president in university where I had to prove myself all over again, created an intra university tournament called Green Cup which was extremely memorable. Then towards the end of my final academic year, I ran for student president. I was laughed at, again. It was amusing to some people, and maybe inspiring to others as time passed by. It was a personal choice and I had to show resilience and confidence in my decision, so backtracking was not really an option just because a few people did not approve of my candidacy. On the whole, it was a very fulfilling experience.

May 2017. Exams in university were over. I needed a break and needed to get away from everything. My experience in the drama club in university meant that I wanted to give film and theatre and a shot, I tried making several films and failed multiple times. I decided to apply to New York Film Academy, and I did not receive a response the first time. For a brief moment, I thought of leaving it alone, but then something in my head told me to send an email again. This time they responded. My audition was scheduled to be in September 2017. I realized that this was it. This was my chance. I went for my audition in September that year. After the audition I decided to resume things as they were again, assuming that I was going to stay in Dubai the following year. But then, in October I received a mail and everything changed. I was in, as a NYFA student. I did not quite believe it. I was not exactly prepared for it. But then, as it turned out, it meant that I had to move out in January 2018. It was a bittersweet moment, leaving family, and friends that I have known for years behind all of a sudden.

I was 20, when I moved to New York City for the first time. I went to my first hotel apartment in Jersey City with my dad and a family friend. I sat there on the bed, staring at the Manhattan skyline thinking, "Holy mother of God, this is it." It was so damn surreal watching the way my life transformed in five years while staring at the skyline, and I said to myself, "Life, eh?"

26th Jan 2018. The day my dad waved goodbye, after dropping me at my first apartment. That was where the real test began. Since then I moved to the Financial District in NYC from Jersey City, attended classes, made a lot of good friends, met some wonderful mentors, have been broke, been homeless, cleaned clogged washrooms, mostly ate two meals a day instead of three and sometimes went hungry to bed because I needed to save money. It made me realize that I did not need a lot materially, to go after what I wanted and became as minimalistic as I could possibly be at the time. I also became a standup comedian, and was working on my craft as an actor, and working on my craft as an actor with the help of my mentors, also helped me gain knowledge about what went behind the scenes too, as a director. I felt great learning from such accomplished people and also learnt a lot from my classmates and friends there. My journey as a standup comedian continued, I did gigs in bars and comedy clubs. My favorite one so far, was the gig I did at Gotham Comedy Club, a few friends from NYFA and my cousin showed up. It was wonderful performing there in front of a packed audience, and hearing my name within the lineup, gave me goosebumps. It was a great time and a time that taught me a lot about myself.

September 2018. I was back to Dubai. Everything seemed different. When I walked into my house I was stunned at the space I had to walk around, in my house itself. It still amazes me even now. It was wonderful coming back to my family and spending time with them. I tried reaching out to friends, there has not been a response yet. People drift, some people get busy with work. I am still waiting for the day I can hang out with a friend here in Dubai and have a coffee or a nice chat about things that have happened here. I did a couple of gigs here in Dubai since coming back, and realized how different the humor in Dubai and NYC really is. As a comedian I realized that I have to work on my material. I also train with different actors and actresses in Dubai and I directed my first play in Dubai called Pick Me which is a locally written script for Short+Sweet Theatre Dubai 2019. I have also been working on my YouTube channel, "TheSahajpalOberoiMedia" since November 2018.

As an only child of an entrepreneur, I realized that it was better to live on my own terms as it would lead to more powerful experiences, and that a lot of life is trial and error. There is a fine line between being laid back and working on what you want to do and being and seeming like that "spoiled child". There is a burning desire within me to do things without my parents' help. It would have been easy to sit back in Dubai and complain about how the weather in NYC would be bad or about how I would not get along with different people or how I would not get good Indian food and do my laundry properly, but I did not do it and decided to challenge myself and it taught me some valuable lessons about myself.

I don't know everything about life. I don't know what life has in store for me, but I am looking forward to it.